In declaring Colorado's school finance system "significantly underfunded," Denver District Judge Sheila Rappaport rejected virtually every argument presented by the state's star witnesses in a five-week trial this year over school funding levels.

Rappaport's ruling, issued Friday, blasted the state's level of school funding as "unconscionable" and not meeting the requirement in the Education Clause of the Colorado Constitution of a "thorough and uniform" system of public education. Her ruling handed the problem off to lawmakers to fix, and the judge said she wouldn't revisit her ruling any earlier than the end of the 2012 legislative session.

The decision, which could have multibillion- dollar consequences, is virtually guaranteed to be appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. Lawmakers have said it's highly unlikely they would refer a tax measure to voters for more school funding, especially since voters in November shot down an initiative to raise $3 billion for education.

Right now, legislators appear to be waiting for the state's high court to have the final word on the case.

Though the state, defended by Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican, argued that increased funding does not guarantee student success and that students in Colorado do better than those in many other states, Rappaport disagreed.

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"The overwhelming evidence supports the conclusion that with sufficient funding, school districts can meaningfully improve all students' achievement," Rappaport wrote in her ruling. "Unquestionably, additional financial resources appropriately applied can improve student achievement, which, under the standards-based system, is the ultimate measure of the success of a thorough and uniform system of public education."

A key witness for the state was Eric Hanushek, a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, who testified that repeated studies have shown no consistent relationship between levels of funding and achievement. He also testified that average funding per pupil in the United States quadrupled from 1960 to 2007, while performance essentially stayed flat.

But Rappaport blistered Hanushek several times throughout her ruling.

"Dr. Hanushek's analysis that there is not much relationship in Colorado between spending and achievement contradicts testimony and documentary evidence from dozens of well-respected educators in the state, defies logic and is statistically flawed," the judge said, pointing to cases in which courts in other states "found him to lack credibility."

Rappaport saved her fiercest criticism for former state Senate president John Andrews, a Centennial Republican, who testified for the state, calling his views on education "extreme."

"Sen. Andrews' vision for the future is a separation of schools and state similar to the separation of church and state in our nation," the judge said. "He has signed a pledge calling for the end of government involvement in education. He reveres the educational system we had in this country in the 1700s because there were few government-operated schools. He fails to mention that our schools did not educate whole segments of the population, including women and people of color, at that time."

And while the state argued that students in Colorado, which spent $8,782 per pupil in 2008-09, often outperformed students in Wyoming, where funding was $14,268 per pupil, Rappaport dismissed it.

"Wyoming is not comparable to Colorado," she wrote. "Colorado has 800,000 students compared to Wyoming's 80,000 and has significantly more African-American and Latino students. Wyoming is extremely sparse. It has to spend significant amounts of its education money on transportation just to get kids to school."

Plaintiffs in the case, who represented students and school districts across the state, did not seek a certain sum of money to fix the problem. However, they have pointed to studies showing the state needs up to $4 billion more to provide an adequate education.

Rappaport made clear in her ruling she was not determining what the proper amount is.

"It is not this court's function to determine at this time the amount necessary to provide adequate funding for public education," she wrote. "However, the court does find that public education is very significantly underfunded and that any legislative response of necessity must address the level of funding necessary to meet the mandate of the Education Clause and the standards- based system and should provide funding consistent with that standard."

The case, Lobato vs. State of Colorado, was named for Taylor Lobato, who was in middle school in the San Luis Valley when her parents filed the suit in 2005. She now attends the University of Denver.

"It may be too late for me, and it may be too late for my sister, but there are so many other students in the public education system," she said at a news conference Saturday in Colorado Springs.

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